What. Artist in Residence
When. September/October 2022
Where.  Jokkmokk
Organizers. Jokkmokk Municipality, Resurscentrum för konst
Who. Oscar Guermouche, artist (b. 1977 in Stockholm).
Website.  guermouche.com

Oscar Guermouche explores language as a bearer of identity. His work focuses on connections between body and text, using questions of biography, self-image, and character as a starting point. He is particularly interested in male characters as well as their environments and languages, and the narratives that create and recreate them. This includes issues such as coming of age, fatherhood, and gender.

At the same time, as a person with a background in the MENA region, but born and raised in Sweden, race, ethnicity, and nationhood, as well as home and threat, have inevitably become key components in several of his works.

Guermouche’s practice is based on text, mainly by copying and compiling existing texts. Concurrently, the works include several different techniques, such as painting, video, performance, installation, and publication.
 
As Artist in Residence, Guermouche will be working on an ongoing archive project relating to the construction of the Swedish nation-state interconnected with its antagonism against Russia. The archive takes its starting point in Guermouche’s military service at the Lapland Ranger Regiment in Kiruna and is built on historical material such as marching songs, news articles, artworks, laws, and psalms. During his stay, he will focus on sources connected to Jokkmokk, North Bothnia, and Sápmi.
 
Oscar Guermouche obtained his master’s degree (MFA) from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm in 2009. 
His work has been exhibited at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Göteborgs Konsthall, the National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Kunsthalle Rostock, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation in London, Lokal 30 in Warsaw, and Sleepwalker Projects in Toronto, amongst others. Also, he has had several articles and essays published by, for example, Paletten Art Journal, Verk Tidskrift, the Swedish Association for Art, Flamme Forlag, and Turku Biennaali.
In 2020, he co-founded the publishing house Praun & Guermouche.